Verizon is upping its game to entice new and existing customers to sign on to its premium mobile or home internet plans, offering a free season of the pricey NFL Sunday Ticket package from YouTube and YouTube TV.
It’s a limited time promotion, where access to the package includes out-of-market Sunday afternoon regular season games and typically retails for around $449 for the season.
There are a decent number of caveats as to who can take advantage of the latest content offer from Verizon. For mobile to be eligible, new Verizon customers need to sign on for a premium unlimited plan or existing customers need to add a new line to their account, purchase a select smartphone (such as Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and GalaxyZ Flip6 or the Google Pixel Fold) and have an Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Ultimate plan. Eligibility for Verizon Home Internet customers include new subscribers signing up for a premium plan like 5G or LTE Home Plus, or Fios 1 Gig or 2 Gig service, while existing customers need to upgrade to one of those plans to access free NFL Sunday Ticket. Customers have to redeem by the earlier of 60 days from July 24 or by no later than December 10, 2024.
That said, Verizon is still offering something to any existing customers that have a myPlan or Home Internet service by providing a $100 discount on the current season of NFL Sunday ticket.
The offer for Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV doesn’t include a base subscription to the latter (which isn’t required to get NFL Sunday Ticket from the carrier) but Verizon is offering its new and existing Home Internet customers a $10 per month ($120 for the year) discount for 12 months on a YouTube TV Base plan (regularly priced at $72.99 per month). The offer is only available to those who don’t currently or haven’t previously subscribed to virtual MVPD YouTube TV, which offers access to more than 100 channel and as of February had 8 million subscribers.
It's the latest content play from Verizon to sweeten its service offerings, having already offered discounted streaming bundles like $10 per month Max and Netflix for wireless subs – and just last week introduced a new offer for a free year of Netflix’s Premium plan when customers purchase one year of Peacock Premium.
It comes after the carrier reported Q2 earnings this week, where its traditional pay TV Fios video base declined by 65,000 net customers. Verizon doesn’t give a lot of attention to Fios video in earnings anymore, with a total base that in the second quarter declined 8.8% year over year to now just 2.8 million. That compares to a wireless postpaid base of nearly 94 million (after gaining 72,000 net additions in the quarter) a wireless prepaid base of 20.2 million (having lost a whopping 624,000 net prepaid customers in Q2). On the internet side, Verizon added 24,000 net Fios Internet subscribers for a total of 7 million and gained 218,000 net fixed wireless access Home Internet customers for a total of around 2.3 million.
Google’s YouTube, meanwhile, just reported Q2 advertising revenue of $8.66 billion, up 13% from the same quarter a year ago. Google’s subscriptions, platforms and devices segment – which includes YouTube TV, NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube Premium along with other products, reported revenue of $9.3 billion, up 14% year over year. Alphabet and Google CFO Ruth Porat noted there was a sequential decline in the growth rate “as we anniversaried the impact of the price increase for YouTube TV in the second quarter last year,” adding the impact will continue throughout the remainder of 2024. That said, Porat noted subscription revenue continues be driven by subscriber expansion at both YouTube TV and YouTube Music Premium, where she said people are interested in the subscription offerings and signups continue to be strong.
“We see a lot of take up in it, strong subscriber growth,” Porat noted, adding the company is “really pleased with it.”
And Verizon and YouTube are leveraging each other for more than just content offerings.
During Google-parent Alphabet’s earnings call, Philipp Schindler, SVP and CBO, Google said that growth for YouTube on CTV is happening across multiple verticals, including sports – which specifically “has seen CTV watchtime on YouTube grow 30% year over year.”
Schindler called out Verizon specifically as a large advertiser in the telco vertical that’s been teaming up with creators for ads and organic integrations on the platform.
He said Verizon worked with a YouTube creator and Verizon customer to feature the variety of ways the operator’s plans can be customized to people’s needs.
“Using AI-powered formats, they created sketches in multiple lengths and orientations to serve the right creative to the right viewer and drive people to their site. Verizon’s creator ads had a 15% lower CPA and 38% higher conversion rate versus other ads,” Schindler said.